Font ResizeI have often heard of this "golden age of cocktails," which usually refers to a time in the late 1800s and early 1900s when cocktails were in vogue, before Prohibition supposedly killed the phenomenon.
I couldn't disagree more. In fact, we are living in the golden age of cocktails. Never before have such a bewildering array of products been available. Many old mixers such as crème de violette, lime cordial and peach bitters have become readily available. Fresh fruits and vegetables are available year-round. The advances in refrigeration, sterilization and preservation over the past century are unparalleled. But an important and often-overlooked factor that makes the most difference is that these days, the federal and state governments regulate the production of the liquor itself, meaning that every major liquor available has a "standard of identity' governing its manufacture. That didn't exist 100 years ago.
Recently San Francisco's Anchor Distilling (part of Fritz Maytag's Anchor Brewing) released a new edition of "Cocktail Boothby's American Bartender" ($14.95) written by William Boothby, San Francisco's most celebrated bartender of the so-called golden age.
When Boothby died in 1930, the San Francisco
Born in San Francisco, Boothby was a traveling comedian and minstrel before embarking on a career as a bartender. He tended bar in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Kansas City before returning to the city of his birth. He would go on to work at the Hotel Rafael in San Rafael and later preside over the bars of San Francisco's Fairmont and Palace hotels before becoming a state assemblyman. In fact, his 1908 edition of "The World's Drinks and How To Mix Them" is prefaced "To the liquor dealers of San Francisco who unanimously assisted in my election to the Legislature by an unprecedented majority" - a sentiment to which perhaps San Francsico's current mayor might relate.
I highly recommend Anchor's new edition of "American Bartender" (assembled by Maytag along with historian David Burkhart, no relation, www.anchordistilling.com), in part because it proves my point about the golden age admirably. Here's a "then" and "now" specific to whiskies from the book to demonstrate.
THEN
On making bourbon whiskey (under valuable secrets for liquor dealers).
"To one hundred gallons of proof spirit, add four ounces pear oil, two ounces of pelargonif ether, thirteen drachms of oil of wintergreen (dissolved in the ether), and one gallon of wine vinegar. Color with burnt sugar.
On making rye whiskey: "Bake, scorch and roast half a peck of dried peaches in an oven, but don't burn them. Bruise and put them in a woolen bag, and pour good whiskey over them several times. Add afterwards twelve drops of ammonia to each barrel, and with ageing essence, you will have whiskey equal to old rye."
NOW
According to the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms:
"'Bourbon whisky,' 'rye whisky,' 'wheat whisky,' 'malt whisky' or 'rye malt whisky' is whisky produced at not exceeding 160 deg. proof from a fermented mash of not less than 51 percent corn, rye, wheat, malted barley, or malted rye grain, respectively, and stored at not more than 125 deg. proof in charred new oak containers; and also includes mixtures of such whiskies of the same type."
Any deviation from that is a federal crime. Furthermore, according to California State law, if a liquor is manipulated in any way, it must be removed from its original packaging and be clearly labeled as such. Meaning that the whiskey in that Jim Beam bottle must be only Jim Beam whiskey with nothing else added, period. As a result of my research I have formulated a couple of conclusions.
- Government regulation can sometime mean that you get exactly what you pay for.
- Even if all the whiskey available at the turn of the century wasn't made the way Boothby suggests, the fact that his substitutes could pass for the real thing speaks volumes about the quality of the products available.
- Older ways of doing things are not always better.
- San Francisco's most famous bartender wrote his most famous book while tending bar in Marin County.
- People living in the "golden age" of an event are often unaware of that fact until the "age" is over.
- Anchor's version of "Cocktail Boothby's American Bartender" is a must-read for anyone interested in local cocktail history - especially those inclined to waxing philosophic about events that they, themselves, never witnessed.
Jeff Burkhart is an award-winning bartender at a Marin bar/restaurant and an author. His columns appear weekly in Here. Add your comments to the end of this story. Contact him at jeffb@thebarflyonline.com.
